Human trafficking victim calls for treatment, not jail

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When she was sixteen, Aubrey Lloyd was already the victim of a broken, dysfunctional home. Her father was in prison, her mother was abusing drugs and she had been a child sex abuse victim.

That profile set her up perfectly to be forced into a life of teenage sex trafficking, lured by an older woman who complimented Aubrey while she worked behind the counter of a convenience store after school.

“My friend encouraged me to run away to her house, which appeared to be more stable, and so I made that decision, again, with my sixteen-year-old brain, and found myself involved in the escort service and had no idea how to get out of it.

“That night I went out with all of them and I was drinking a can of soda which I really feel was laced with something because I blacked out from that point and woke up to being sexually assaulted. After that sexual assault was over, my then pimp came in and told me that was the last time I would ever tell him, ‘No.’”

What followed was a year of physical and sexual abuse while being plied with drugs and sold to strangers.